How to Save a Life
by Bhryn Astairre
Summary: The path to salvation is long and often all you need is a gentle push to change destiny for the better...


_(( I can't get enough of FF7 and all things related, and despite suffering big writing blocks, I'm trying to shift it by listening to wonderful music and writing a couple of short fictions…I wrote this whilst listening to The Fray and Fall Out Boy…))_

**How to Save a Life**

_In case God doesn't show  
__And I want these words to make things right  
__But it's the wrongs that make these words come to life  
__Who does he think he is?_

…_If that's the worst you've got better put your fingers back to the keys…_

_One Night and one more time  
__Thanks for the memories…_

* * *

In all things, she conceded defeat, a little grudgingly perhaps, but knowing there was nothing to be done about it. It had always been this way, flagging steps behind everyone, unable to get the words out that she wanted in the exact way she wanted them to be said. So when Cloud had told her he was leaving the town, she accepted it quietly, the quiet yet wounded defeat of someone who knew that anything she said would be too little and far too late. 

When she took up the training under Zangan, she was looking for ways to expand her mind and broaden her horizons, she was hunting for a tiny door or window from this sleepy little town through which she could escape and find someone, somewhere, anywhere out there where she could find some peace in her heart. She battled her own demons each day, sitting after hours of practise with her home tutoring work at hand upon the edge of her bed, perched by the wide window as if she could somehow sprout wings and fly away.

Instead, she would always stand up and close the curtains so she didn't have to see the inevitable night coming down, she could close the door to her room and sigh into her pillow, forgetting she was ever able to cry at all. All those tears and all those words had been given away to her mother who, like the wind she wished to emulate in all the freedom and glory it had, had escaped over the mountains to somewhere better, somewhere that she knew she couldn't follow her to.

She grew a little less friendly with her father, but not out of his own attempts to care for her, clumsy as they were in the way that frightened single parents tend to have with their only reminder of a woman who had dominated their lives and hearts. She took up mountain walking, horse riding, took a vested interest in architecture, piano lessons and cookery. But no matter what she tried to fill the vacancy with, it would hang hollow in her chest and resonate with those words she locked away inside of her, formless, meaningless words.

The problem was in part that she was so practical. The effort of whimsy was one that she had never been geared towards. She had enjoyed childhood, she had flirted briefly with dreams and boys and soon grew bored, uninterested with them, withdrawing slowly from the world and trying to pretend she was still curious about life, smiling a little and sometimes, hardly at all when no one was around.

When the Shin-Ra came back to her town, she had wished hard for Cloud to be there, for the silent and equally as awkward company that he personified, his own personal struggle with words that she sympathised with more as she grew older. But as she waited there, nervous and stammering over her 'welcome home' under her breath, he didn't show at all. And again, she would sigh, sigh, sigh out and exhale those childish hopes.

But with the Shin-Ra came the flames, came the memories of pain and anguish, scattering themselves over her soul and leaving her with her own hideous scar that had never seemed to heal properly, a ridge of pale skin riding up her breastbone and towards her neck, thin but deep. Even now she couldn't remember clearly, but the pain was always there, the pain in her body and in her heart, leaving her shivering. It left her cold, always cold and always wishing she could just forget, put it into a box and send it off somewhere else.

She woke in a clinic some way from her town, burned only with the blurred memory of her father's face and the sneer of Sephiroth, her face scorched pink with the heat of flames that subsided thankfully not long after. She wasn't even allowed to move for the longest time, the wound on her chest requiring vigilance from the Materia doctors on hand. They told her, she was lucky.

She only sighed and wondered just how much more 'lucky' she would get.

A letter from her tutor told her that a friend of his was waiting for her in the city called Midgar on the eastern continent. A sprawl of an urban jungle, metal clad and dripping with toxic substances seen and unseen, the hive and hub of activity was dominated entirely by the iron fist of Shin-Ra. Why she should even go anywhere near that bunch of psychotic nut jobs she had no clue, but for so long she had been following her tutors orders that she didn't even think to question.

So it was that when she was well enough, she gathered up her things and set out for adventure and excitement, the world turning under her feet as she made the long journey to Midgar, over seas and mountains until eventually she bought a passport into the city and went looking for this friend that her master had mentioned.

This friend happened to be a big, big burly black man, his arm grafted with a dangerous looking gun and despite a grim front; his polished dark eyes glittered with hidden smiles, smiles she wondered if he ever used. His face was lined and tired, as lined as she knew hers should be and as weary as she felt.

It was from him that she learned Shin-Ra had been mimicking various accidents and the like over recent years, a spate of them driving a political wedge against their machinations. So it was that he had left his hometown of Corel with his daughter, a shy but sweet girl called Marlene who clung to her 'daddy' as if he would evaporate if she didn't. He left to come here, where he could start a resistance against the company.

She agreed to help and together they found meagre funding for a bar, to cover their operations. For the first time, as she surveyed the bar she owned and people who had quickly become regulars to it, she felt happy, she felt like smiling honestly. This was something she had made, something no one could take from her. It went this way for a couple of years and then…

…just passing by the train station, she saw him, slumped on the steps and breathing shallowly in a uniform that seemed slightly too large for him, clutching a sword that was easily his own height in a fevered grip. Kneeling in disbelief by his prone form, she smoothed hair back from a face taut with silent pain.

When he came around, he was mumbling incoherently and despite it breaking her a little more; she nodded along with him, keeping up the pretence of his lies so he would feel at ease. In the weeks that followed she would spend many evenings alone in the Seventh Heaven bar, a glass forgotten in one hand as she stared listlessly at herself in the mirror set back behind the bar, hating what she saw there, unable to change what she had become.

And again, always again, she sighed in defeat…

* * *

"Hey now, is my cooking really that bad?" 

The sweet voice dragged her from the murk of thoughts, across the camp fire where light flickered fitfully. A griddle had been set with meat and vegetables, some bread-like substance rolled into doughy balls and left to raise so when they had started to eat, they would be just right, just gooey enough, each one secretly filled with a spicy paste that tantalised the senses. There was cold stream water, lightly garnished with berries they had found earlier, crushed to flavour it.

She broke into an uneven laugh, picking up her bowl in hands that were chilled. "No, no, it's delicious, I was just thinking."

"A gil for your thoughts?"

She glanced across at the others about the fire, laughing and joking together, hardly paying them any attention; the strong face of Barrett and the calm one of Cloud's, the excitable grin on Yuffie's mouth and the lingering heap of snoring that was Vincent and Cid atop the immobile stuffed body of Cait with Red nowhere in sight. No one was watching, so she glanced idly back at the girl who has sneaked up on her, sitting very close by and watching her with curious, thought filled green eyes. Her hair was almost glowing in the firelight and her skin made warm by that fiery presence, warm enough she had shed her jacket to sit upon.

"My thoughts aren't worth a gil."

"Two gil then?"

"…it's not quite what I meant."

"Oh, holding out for a five-gil note, I see how it is. You drive a hard bargain!"

In spite of herself, she could almost feel a faint tugging on her lips, the curve of a genuine if confused little smile. She didn't need to feel her mouth to know if it showed, because it must have registered in her eyes or how she sat, for the beautiful girl bathed in the light leaned back and smiled happily. She loved seeing that smile; it was definitely something precious and extraordinary, something beyond even that.

When Aerith smiled, the world smiled with her.

She cast her eyes down to the bowl she held, of sticky meat and glazed vegetables, covered in a thick spiced sauce, then to the bowl of fluffed rice sat right by it. "I guess I do."

"I think I have one on me," Aerith muttered, digging into her pockets.

Startled by this, she glanced up in wild alarm, watching the hands dart about on the pockets and seams of the red jacket, hunting for the note. Then it was held aloft much to the lurch of her heart.

"Aha!"

"Oh…" Tifa said awkwardly.

A sudden gust of wind had other ideas, snatching it firmly from Aerith's fingers and fluttering it into the darkness. The ancient watched it go, mouth slightly agape in surprise and briefly, Tifa thanked her lucky stars. However minor and few they were.

"Oh well, fiddlesticks to that! _Naughty_ wind!"

"Yes, terribly," she murmured, hiding her smile at the comical, cheerful indignation. There was just something about watching the young woman chastise the air about them that filled her with a strange kind of joy.

In truth, Tifa never knew how exactly she did it. She walked into a room and lights came on, smiles rose to lips that had forgotten how and eyes sparkled with anticipation. She laughed and the world laughed along, she cried and the world wept with her. There was not one single emotion that did not register itself with sincerity in the outgoing Ancient, from surprise, to anxiety and even to sadness. The whole gamut of emotions was the dangerous rollercoaster you had to ride, simply by knowing her. And despite all of this and her own unravelling problems as a Cetra child, Aerith found time for each and every one of them.

Tifa didn't know for sure when it was she had started noticing her in this way, she couldn't precisely place her finger on it. Maybe it was when she had shown up in a red dress and tried to alleviate all their fears in one go? Maybe it was when they had ran breathlessly to the car, escaping the Shin-Ra together? Maybe having Aerith cling to her back as hard as she could with frail arms when they chased the swamp or the journey on the boat, where Tifa had paused to watch Aerith watch the Gelnika in awe? Maybe it was none of these things, maybe it was all of them.

But sitting here, with the precious time that Aerith always tried to make for her, she wouldn't swap it for anything in the world. She knew she was still withdrawn in some ways, but having the energetic and genuine spark of life that was Aerith try and chivvy her into action each time they did anything, it made her glad she was alive, it made her feel something to get up from the floor each time and try new tactics, new ideas and new ways. Every time she did, the ancient would smile brightly and it was with a twinge of guilt that she wondered why it was that she tried so hard for this bizarre approval.

The meat shifted in the bowl and glaze dripping slowly from the chunks as she turned it over with the sticks that Yuffie's people ate everything with: what was so bad about a fork, really?

"…" A glance to the side saw the Ancient girl slightly slumped over with her chin touching her knees, gazing at the fire. Ever since Nibelheim, perhaps before that at the night in Cosmo Canyon, Aerith had started staring off into nothing and this was worrying Tifa.

"What about you? I don't have money to offer, but you could talk to me?"

"Huh? Oh, ha-ha, it's nothing really." There was a wave of slender and agile fingers, pink lips curving into a moist little smile that barricaded the entire world way. Tifa knew, because that smile was something she had perfected a long time ago.

"You don't have to explain it all, but I wouldn't tell. It's not like they'd listen anyway," she nodded toward the rest of the boisterous group, "I'd just listen and not judge. Friends do that."

"…"

"You've been a bit strange since Cosmo Canyon, what's going on?"

"Since that time…" Aerith turned her large green eyes back to the flicker of the fire, putting her chin on her arms and sighing, "It's to do with what I am, not who I am."

"Being a Cetra?"

There was a discernable smile for her, for remembering the true name of Aerith's people, but the eyes didn't move from the fire. "It's always to do with it, isn't it?"

* * *

She had always thought of people as being 'woe is me' and downtrodden by their own harsh realities and that when such realities happen, they would buckle and crumble under the pressure. She always thought that if you had to survive in a tough world then you needed to show it a tough side of you, be just as hard hitting back. Niceties had no place in this world, so you did whatever you could, did whatever it took to carry on. Dog eat Dog or as the ancients had said 'Canis Canem Edit'. 

She grew to be that way but it was from the start that Aerith had been different. It was then that she realised you could be a little different and still survive.

She was strong in the way of mountains and rocks and fire. Aerith was the quiet strength of solitude, stars and wind and all things you couldn't reach out and directly touch. That was how Aerith was, that was how she came across to the world.

Travelling with her from the hunk of metal, she became more aware of herself and by association, of how Aerith was like. She took it in her stride that Aerith would have to be rescued, because she too, would need to be rescued if the Shin-Ra ever laid their hands on, she would be paralysed with that fear, the never-ending and awful reminder of fire and cuts and burns that still felt so hot on the cold, sweat soaked skin.

She saw her smile for people and saw there were different kinds of smiles she was able to use: a smile for people in love, one for the children who played in the fountain, one for when she was laughing and got the joke and one for when she was laughing and wasn't sure if she understood the punch line. There was a smile for the banker, the shopkeeper, the materia assistant and the inn keeper, all smiles of different calibres. There were even smiles for food, for drinks, for the sun and air and most of all, that soft and distracted little smile she wore when running through the grass, laughing to herself and perhaps, laughing to the Planet she was so deeply connected to.

She saw her touch, a touch far different to any Tifa could wield anymore, a light caress of fingers that promised safety and sanctuary, a soft voice that drew people back from edges of mental or physical oblivion. She saw how she healed wounds of heart and body with deft ease, always knowing where to press to stem the flow and always, without fail, healing.

She was in awe of her talent with people, of how people listened to her without even seemingly to realise they were doing so, often pausing in their conversations to tilt their heads and watch the slender flower girl draped in pink who never once had to raise her voice. Always in soft and measured tones she spoke, expressive with her hand movements and all unconscious, she began to copy her motions, remembering how she used to be before all of this maddening anguish in her life had begun. She spent increasingly more time in the company of Aerith, watching the social skills at work and at times, often torn between pride and jealousy, covetousness of her.

She hated having to give up any of her precious time she was allotted with the Ancient, she hated that other people would be there, sneaking in on those stolen moments when she could feel alive with Aerith at her side, laughing and sparkling like a true diamond wrenched from the rough.

She knew without a doubt that she could not bring Cloud back from his madness, but relied instead on Aerith to do it. She let her weave to and fro by Cloud's side, healing the awful psychic wound laid bare on him. She watched her from a distance and then, when the journey got harsh, relied upon her too to take care of them all.

Only when it came to that point at the foot of the village called Gongaga, where both girls fled the house where Zack's parents had been, only then did she glimpse the frailty under this hard shell Aerith presented and she was frightened.

She was frightened for Aerith.

When she found her she was shaking, she was weeping into curled up hands bent over by a rickety fence and despite her rough hands finding those heaving shoulders of the Ancient, no words could undo the hurt of simple words spoken by unknowing parents. Aerith had never said expressly what her first loves name had been but seeing his parents and the violent reaction, she didn't have to tell her now either. She held her until the weeping passed and after, in the night, gripping her hands until Aerith drifted into a fitful sleep and dreamed of a sometime past, when she had been smiling and a strong young man had given her the sky.

The journey was harder still and whilst Aerith was clearly thoughtful, she spent much of her time around the others, bolstering spirits and encouraging them all to keep on, to keep moving on the continuing road which as all roads do, led them to their destination of Cosmo Canyon. A chasm where houses had been hewn into the rock face, windmills, turbines and people dressed in scant clothes for the almost constant heat of the daylight hours and over-robes for when the evening became cool.

She watched the land and Aerith, an eye on each and trying her hardest to stay close to her even when they split off to talk to other people. That evening, the sky was dark and tense and Aerith couldn't even meet her eyes across the fire, emerald orbs shimmering with unspent tears and her lower lip caught between anxious white teeth, gnawed at.

When asked, she could only reply with "I'm all that's left. I'm all alone."

And to that, she could say nothing at all.

Whatever they had said to her then had knocked the air from someone she had become used to, someone she relied upon to bring light and life to her. Even though Aerith tried hard to cover it up, she knew something had been irreparably broken; something had been taken away from the flower girl. After Nibelheim, her suspicions were confirmed.

When exploring the basement, when Sephiroth had barrelled past in a gust of shadow and air, she had pulled Aerith down beneath her weight. But there hadn't been a single scream or flinch as she would have expected, like the muted squeal that had died in her own throat. Instead, the green eyes were fixed after the trail of Sephiroth. Cloud had called them into the room where tanks and equipment was stored but Aerith stayed away from the rest, outside with her hands laced together and staring down the passage after the ghost of someone who should be a nightmare.

She stayed there with her and reached out for her hand, only to find it cool and unresponsive and when spoken to, the Ancient could only say; "It isn't long now."

And again, always again, she sighed in defeat deep down inside and let it slide on past.

What exactly should she say to something like that?

The melancholia grew worse with each passing step, until there seemed to be very little sparkle left in the flower girl, a sparkle recreated by her actions and words, a perfect little actress, fooling everyone into believing that everything would be fine. She lied to them, a white lie to keep everyone's spirits up even when at night, laid next to her in the dark of their tents she could almost reach out and feel that Aerith was slipping away from them, bit by bit.

Moist pink smiles and brilliant emerald eyes by day, by night she would sit by the fire and murmur spells and incantations, recite old texts from a book she had borrowed from the elders in Cosmo Canyon and her eyes would reflect that flickering light, shining with untold dreams and visions. But when someone would chance near, the book would close and she summoned a smile. She never intruded directly, but instead stayed close by on those evenings, watching her, hunting for the Aerith underneath all this purpose.

One evening at the Gold Saucer she found it again, she unearthed it with her own two hands and lifted it to the glorious sky in exultation, as if to say: "This is who she is."

The laughter long hidden came pouring out, so sweet and sane that it was almost unbearable for her, Aerith's face lit up as they watched the play where Cloud and Barrett performed together like a pair of graceless dolls, mimicking the bad instructions from both audience and actors. She cupped her hands and hollered for Cloud to kiss Barrett, which made her blush in response, gazing at Aerith.

"It's all in the name of fun, right? Right?" she breathlessly replied.

And she nodded, unsure why it should mean more to her than what had been suggested so offhandedly by the Ancient. Unsure why she grasped at Aerith's hand so tightly and for once, feeling warmed to her core as they rode the speed rollercoaster and both held their stomachs as they filed off. Unsure why watching her almost fall off the motorbike game in the Wonder Square made her laugh and rush to her air, or why the way she poked her tongue from her lips so comically whilst concentrating made her heart sink or maybe leap and flutter madly in her chest. Unsure, always and ever unsure, why when they picked to go on the Gondola ride around the entire theme park that when fireworks lit up her face and her eyes saw only stars tonight, why did she want nothing more than for these feelings to never end?

It was there, camped together outside the Temple of the Ancients which they had spent a good couple of weeks searching for that she watched the face of Aerith held pensive by her inner thoughts that she was grateful. She was many things, she was awed, inspired, touched, warmed, fulfilled, accepted and most of all, loved in a soft kind of way and for the first time in a long time, she felt like she had to say something.

…but like all the other times, she wondered, if there was ever a time to tell it to her. So she sighed, inside, in defeat and looked back at the fire.

And Aerith just smiled slightly, as if she could read Tifa's mind, and said nothing at all.

* * *

There was chaos and confusion, dust rising in plumes as she skidded down the sheer sides of the empty hole where the temple had been. Half an hour before, Aerith had been by her side, holding the quarterstaff with expert ease, twisting magic to her superior command and flashing it along the length of the demon wall with fire and ice and chasing the skin with violent eruptions, protecting them from the backlash. An hour and a half before, Aerith had been calming down Cloud after watching the wall with the murals shift, the wall which contained a secret she could not decode but the Ancient had simply by laying eyes upon it, her mouth tightening in horror and grim acceptance. Two hours before, they had watched Sephiroth cut down Tseng in the room with the murals from a hidden pool of light where the spirits of Ancients dwelt still. Four hours before, they had stood on the altar into the temple where Tseng's body was, bleeding slowly on the verge of death and the Ancient had turned away to hide anguished tears. Six hours before, she had been woken by the sweet singing of the Cetra girl as she washed her hair in the stream, knowing that today was the day they broke the steps to the temple and entered it, the pathway to this destiny she was apprehensive about without ever once speaking the words aloud. 

And now, Aerith lay in a crumpled heap underneath the maddened Cloud, his fists striking down. Each hit drew blood from the frail girl, splattering it across the rocks from cuts on her cheeks and from her nose, droplets of crimson that seemed wildly out of place and yet, somehow as if it had been waiting for this to happen for a long time. Shouts of horror chased Tifa down into the hole as the others came rushing to the brink. A clatter told her that Yuffie was screeching at Cid to let her go so she could beat some sense into Cloud, but others were following her down.

Aerith didn't move under the blows, the first must have knocked her out cold and each blow made her head shift slightly with the impact. Tifa leapt from the wall once she was close enough and with a cry of pure rage, threw herself into the side of Cloud, arms wrapping about his waist and throwing him away from the body of Aerith and the terrible patches of blood that she refused to look at.

He screamed in anger and she didn't let go, crushing him down into the rocks and the fine powder, her hands shaking and acidic bile rising in her throat as she told herself that no matter what she did, she should not look behind her. Her own anger was a match for his. He tried swinging his arm around for her, but he was trying to hand-to-hand fight a martial artist, and for once, Tifa was glad she was able to feel this much pain in her heart. Her left hand deftly pushed the blow over her shoulder and the right snapped about for his chin, lifting his head briefly. It was enough of an opening that her left hand blurred with speed and in a flat shape 'chopped' at the base of his skull and dropped him unconscious. She caught him by the back of his shirt, where the material folded into a roll neck.

"…" Tifa bit her lip, trying to gather herself and not looking over her shoulder, asked of whomever was tending to Aerith, "Well?"

"It's not as bad as it looks; she's tougher than we all seem to think. We'll get her to a materia master and have him look it over, and then spend a few nights in an inn. They'll need it, both of them, to recover from this."

"Gongaga, take them there."

"Oh, why not Kalm?"

"Gongaga is the closest in reach considering we only have the Bronco to get us there." She hefted Cloud over her shoulder, "I'll go on ahead."

"I'll fix Aerith then." It was Vincent who spoke, backed up by Yuffie who despite all her childish airs was actually a really useful magic user, second to Aerith perhaps with her versatility in magic. "Yuffie," he said softly, "Stop pushing."

"I don't have a cure materia," she snapped back, "I need to get the one from Aerith's bracelet."

"Oh. I knew that."

His quiet voice and the usual arguing between Yuffie and Vincent often made her smile, but it was strongly connected to visions of Aerith laughing, so she grit her teeth and started towards the sheer slope, hauling not only herself but Cloud from the vast pit and up the sides until she could finally deposit him at the top.

And even as they argued whilst the thrum of healing magic was heavy in the air, she didn't once look back down for fear of seeing the flash of darkening blood on the rocks, for fear of ever seeing something like that again.

Instead she went inside and for the entire journey to Gongaga watched Aerith, propped next to Cloud, her face wan in the light with cuts and swelling, for Yuffie had really done the best she could. Cloud's face was marked with some kind of agony, his lips moving and his eyebrows knitted with it, contorting his face into a rictus that she found almost unbearable to look at.

The Inn at Gongaga was rather luckily not full; it had enough rooms to spare for two sick people and a common sleeping area for the rest. She made sure that Cloud was on the ground floor, away from the others on the second floor and after Aerith was settled and the materia master had kindly come round to check on her breathing and administer some healing potions, the Ancient had seemingly slept better, hands folded over her middle.

It was sitting here, just watching the keen profile of the fragile girl in the growing twilight that she wondered what she might have done better, to avoid this kind of circumstance. She ideally should have gone down into the pit with Aerith; she shouldn't have become so upset over some stupid fortune read by a stuffed mog.

_Cloud's star and Aerith's star… they show a great future…_

A great future: one where he lifts his fists and beats a defenceless young girl? Tifa clenched her hands – she wasn't interested in any of this 'controlled by Sephiroth' rubbish. It was just plain… wrong!

"Why?" She asked hoarsely of the girl on the bed, "Why did you do it?"

There wasn't an answer.

"Why?" Tifa whispered again, putting her hands over her face. No tears, just rubbing the temples and into her dark hair, over and over again to release the tension. She stayed there, watching Aerith sleep until sometime in the early dawn when she fell slowly to sleep, dizzy and spiralling down into the darkness with a kind of dark sweetness following her.

It was in the final descent towards true sleep that she was sure she heard a sweet and gentle voice say; "Because I had to."

* * *

She woke the next day as she often did, with the cold grip of a strange dream strangling her about the heart, the even colder sensation spreading through her when the bed before her proved to be empty of anyone, a ruffle of blankets and a small pile of materia and items left behind. But those things that were quintessentially Aerith were gone; the staff and the boots and the backpack, even the small denim jacket in red. Only the passing scent of Aerith was fading into the air even as she got up to investigate the grounds, hunting desperately for the girl. 

There was a commotion and she came back to find Cloud was awake, and after sharing her hurried news with everyone, decided to try and poke their illustrious leader into some kind of action but unlike that which she had expected from him where matters of Aerith were concerned, he simply shrugged a shoulder and turned his face to the side.

She felt like smacking him.

One good left hook to the jaw would jar him into action, surely?

But he persisted still, moaning some drivel about being scared.

_Scared?_

What did he know about being _scared?_

Tifa had been frightened of living for as long as she could remember the agony of watching people able to change and able to become something far better than what they were before. Tifa had been something she hated and she had been scared to death that if she did ever try to change, then she would end up burned, end up alone and end up worse off than anything she had ever been before. She had been afraid to reach out and touch someone. What if they had pulled away? Wasn't that frightening enough too?

What about everyone else with their own fears? Everyone was scared, every day they lived whether or not they decided to admit it to themselves. The frightening part of living, of facing the day and the unknown, that was what everyone had to deal with. So what if he was scared? Barrett could be hit by a stampede of chocobos tomorrow, Yuffie could die in battle, Vincent could transform into a monster and never be able to make it back, and those were all incredibly frightening for everyone.

So? So _what?_

So what if he was frightened?

"If you won't do anything about it," she hissed angrily, "We're all going after her. You decide if you want to come or not, but don't expect us to keep coddling you."

He was staring at her in surprise and she felt surprised too at herself, "Tifa."

"…stop being such a waste of space. Get _over_ yourself."

She left after Barrett, those whispered and harsh words something she had felt the need to say for far too long and now they were out, she stood trembling and unable to believe she had finally said them. Oh, she would apologise later for them, but she felt that someone really needed to hit him over the head there and then. Aerith would have been far smoother about it, sweeter and far more agreeable, but Aerith wasn't here right now, so Tifa did the best she could.

Even if, she mused laconically as she hurried towards her room, that verbal abuse of a sort had been sitting in her heart waiting to be said for the longest time. It's not like Cloud was the only one who ever felt something, who wanted to cry, who hurt.

And for the first time in the longest while, she felt a little lighter.

Their journey began perhaps four hours later after the bill was settled and the map was argued over and Yuffie had been seasick enough and Cait had been pushed and squished into a small enough space to let everyone past. It was then that everyone was able to go into the wide unknown and hunt down the trail of Aerith as it zigzagged north. She huddled close to the helm as they sped over the water, gripping sometimes at Cid's shoulder at when evening fell, trying to calm the deep seated and quaking fear in her that she would be too late, that she would have to live with what she needed to say inside of her.

The cryptic answers of the flower girl rang into her guilty dreams each night; dreams where she was back in the Gold Saucer, holding hands with Aerith and laughing as they watched the play, laughing as they stumbled from the rides and smiling, laughing softly at the fireworks and she would watch the glow of dying sparks in the eyes of the Ancient, marvelling at the beauty of the world when seen in those eyes. But each time at the end of the ride when it grew dark, she would be left in the gondola cart with the girl and those eyes, beautiful and hooded by shadows stared at her gently, looking through her to the soul inside.

Moist pink lips moving to speak, _"It isn't long now. And that's okay, isn't it? Isn't it?"_

_Isn't it?_

Each time she dreamed this sequence of dark events she would plunge into the darkness after Aerith with a cry, fingers almost grazing the textured material of the red jacket before she was jerked back into reality, shaking and wondering just what she was trying to do in her dreams. But no one in the camp at evening would have heard her cries, would have heard her twisting in silent agony unable to resolve the conflicts inside of her and unable, each and every night to hold onto the precious flower as night swallowed her up.

On the fourth night rounding the tip of the continent she found a single five-gil note trapped between the rocks and heartened with how it fluttered when pointing northward, she took it as a sign. Tifa had never been the type to believe in signs but when she held the fragile slip of paper she could pretend she still held the heat of Aerith's fingertips and the gentle cry as the note was ripped away into the world from her hands.

North they went, to a new continent of snow and ice, through a dense forest until they came to a village made of bones where after some questioning they discovered that Aerith had actually passed that way, the scent picked up by Red's nose not lying to them and unable to contain her excitement when she heard they were but a few hours behind the Ancient, Tifa had ran into the woods, only to be overcome by lassitude and fall at the roots of a tree.

When she woke back in the camp, the workers of the excavation site explained that the wood which surrounded the old city of the Ancients had a curse or perhaps a strange blessing lay upon it by those which had wished their world to be protected from outsiders. Should anyone without Cetra blood seek to go inside then they would fall prey to the lingering sweetness of sleep and fall, to drowse until someone under heavy enchantments could find them and bring them back, to fall asleep at their side. Tifa, seeing the worker out cold next to her, instantly felt guilty and apologised.

But what an impasse to come to!

After much moping, she finally sat down by the chief excavator who had recently returned from a trip to mainland Midgar and tilted her head, wondering how best to explain her situation to him.

"Our friend, she went through there. She's Cetra, she said that there's this secret up ahead that people have forgotten about. I don't know if we've forgotten about it or not, but I have to follow her."

"Friend, hmm? Maybe she'll come back in her own time." He puffed at his pipe.

"No, there's no time, it's all running out, and don't you see? I have to be there, I have to tell her before she… does something stupid, something stupidly brave!"

"That kind of girl? I see how it is. Well, there was this old wives tale…"

"Oh?" Tifa paused to stare at him, feeling haggard, tired beyond bones but the vague promise of hope made her tense with excitement. "Well?"

"There's a harp, said to lull the forest and enchantments into sleeping. Back in the day when the Ancient's capital was more active, travellers who were admitted were given access by the harp, with guides. Like a passport kind of thing, like you get nowadays with them folks down south. Anyway, it's supposed to be buried around here somewhere. Don't know where, mind you, before you jump all over me begging for it. Tomorrow, we'll dig it up for you folks. Just rest, alright?"

"Rest? Not now, are you sure?"

"Look'it your fellow travellers girl; no matter how hard you push to see this girl of yours-"

"She's not my girl," Tifa interjected softly, feebly almost.

"-they're in sore need of some rest and recuperation and you can't give them that and expect to go tramping off into the unknown. Wise man once said to rest while you can and let everything slowly fall into place about you."

"…" Tifa scuffed her boot and sighed, "I'm tired of destiny."

"Oh ho?" The old excavator said little more, chuckling around his pipe and with that, she left him to his smoke rings to sleep on her bed, restless sleep filled with the haunting voice of Aerith, singing her chants.

During that night she felt closer to Aerith than she ever had been, burning and wanting to reach out, wanting to touch her and know that she was at her fingertips and that the dreams would all melt away, would all simply vanish with a snap of her fingers because, Aerith always made everything better.

The next day, the harp was quickly found by a talented young archaeologist who handed it over without hesitation on the promise that it would be returned. Clutching the harp, she was forced to play the notes to the accompanying scrolls of note work on the body of the harp itself, engraved into the wood as they all walked through the forest, towards the speck of light in the distance, their eyes dazzled by the dappled patterns here and there and when they emerged on the crest of her hill she felt stunned.

The city was much like Aerith, born of crystal and something distant, something airy and untouchable and she wanted to fling herself onto the floor and gather it in her arms. There was sunshine, bright sunshine and she almost smiled again, touching her hand to her forehead.

But exploration of the city turned up nothing, Red adamant that their precious Ancient was still somewhere in the city, so they scoured the bleached wood and shell houses again. To no avail, she might add, leaving them with confused hearts and sore feet and when she came to rest in a bed she sighed with the bitter taste of defeat once again.

Night stole her dreams and she lay, breathing shallowly.

_Hooded eyes of emerald, watching her from the darkness as Aerith was pulled into it, reaching out to her. Her fingers brushed the rough material again and then, just as she was close enough to grab, a hand came out of the shadows with startling speed and pinned her by the throat, other fingers tracing the scar on her chest so it throbbed in burning agony and the soft green eyes of Aerith became those of a cat. Slit pupils and slanted in shape, sneering at her, hating her and his breath cold on her face._

"_And that's alright;" Sephiroth taunted her, "Isn't it?"_

* * *

Down they came, down the spiral of the crystal stairs to where Aerith was bent on the altar, her head bowed in prayer and the soft sighing song of crystal. 

Tifa stayed there, watching Cloud climb those steps.

She watched him pause.

She watched him draw his sword.

She watched him shake his head after raising it up to strike Aerith.

…she watched the dark shape from above.

But then, she **wasn't** watching any longer. She was there, her hands grasping Aerith by the shoulders and pushing hard on her, she was pushing her from the way, she was in the way of the point of the blade and even as it missed the fatal blow for Aerith's heart, it struck down the burning scar on her chest. Aerith opened her mouth and screamed at the blood which splattered across her pink dress, horror replacing that sweet little smile she had finally worn for real. Cloud was shouting. There were cries in the background, the cheated howls of Sephiroth but for the two girls, away from the fighting going on as the madman made his escape, there was only a strange silence.

Tifa had her arms either side of the prone Aerith, feeling blood loss and shock weaken her muscles and yet, she struggled to keep upright over the frail flower girl, looking down at her.

Aerith stared silently back, reaching slowly to place her hands on either side of Tifa's face.

There had never been a moment like this for as long as Tifa could remember there had never been so much emotion crammed into that one single moment and no other moment could ever be just as painfully perfect as this one. She had so much that she wanted, no, needed to say. There was the desire to tell her how much she meant to her, the need to let her know that she would do anything she could to protect her, the want of the shivering girl just underneath her. She wanted so much to express her gratitude, for helping bring her this far, for helping her find the words.

Instead, she just smiled.

Not one of her half little smiles that she wore, a little like Aerith wore the small pink smiles to lie and pretend everything was just hunky-dory. There was none of that. It touched her dark eyes, lighting them up from behind with joy and even as her arms wavered and made ready to give up, she whispered: "It's **not **alright."

And then collapsed onto the flower girl…but the sweet voice chased her insistently into the dark: _"Good."_

* * *

When Tifa awoke there was Aerith, sat beside her and the stars of the world revolving overhead by the edge of a lake made of glowing water. The others were around a campfire, joking softly. 

Her dark eyes confused, she sat up and pressed her hands to her face. Without having to be Cetra, she knew something had changed during that moment she had flung herself in front of Aerith with the speed of a martial artist, she knew something was different. The cool fingers lacing into her own and pulling them down told her enough, something was different, perhaps for the better this time around. A thousand times it could have gone the other way, but for this once when everything had gone Tifa Lockhart's way.

"Thank you," Aerith said softly, "For saving my life."

Tifa stared at her as the Ancient kissed her chilled hands, then with a sob she didn't know she had been storing up, tears welling into her eyes, "No, thank _you_."

"Oh?"

"…for saving mine."

* * *

…_she sat at the bar, every night, hating herself and hating what she had become. She hated it. She went on missions, looking for something to change her from this misery, looking to drag her from the spiral of self destruction that would eventually be her undoing. She wanted a miracle! Was it so much to ask, just one miracle? Just one!_

"…_are you Tifa?"_

_And the Planet sent her the miracle in a form of an angel with soft green eyes in a red dress…_


End file.
